Wish upon the Stars

I woke up to the sound of pounding on my door. Not urgent pounding,  granted, but someone wanted me to wake up. It was annoying and I tried  to ignore it, but they were insistent and I eventually dragged myself  out of bed, ignoring the annoyed whine of my extremely clingy girlfriend  as she burrowed into the covers. When I threw the door open with a  glare, I was mostly unsurprised to see Benny waiting for me, Celine  looking mildly uncomfortable behind him.

"What!"  I snapped, knowing it wasn't anything serious by the smug look on his  face. I'm not a morning person almost ever, but being woken up before  I've finished sleeping puts me in a bad mood every time. Even for naps,  premature wake ups are the best way to piss me off if there's no special  reason for us.

He  just raised an eyebrow, long since immune to my bad moods. "You've been  sleeping for like four hours, and I'm bored. We want to go to the  bazaar now."

"I'd  like it noted that this wasn't my idea." Celine said, raising a hand to  get my attention. "Also hi Shane. I told him to let you sleep, but he's  actually kind of excited about the shopping, despite how scared he was  earlier when I told him that he'd have to learn to haggle."

Benny glared at her. "Don't TELL him that! Now he's going to think I'm a huge pushover."

"Oh  please." I snorted. "That ship sailed years ago." I blew out a breath  in annoyance. "I...guess we could go out. I'm up now so I guess it  doesn't matter." I looked over my shoulder. "Hey, Cal, you up?" My  girlfriend's only response was a hand with the middle finger out poking  through the covers. Celine actually giggled at that, and I turned back  to Benny. "Yeah, she's up. I wouldn't expect much civility from her for a  while though."

There  was a series of muffled words croaked out from under the blanket, and  Celine went red as Benny blanched. "You can't say that to someone!" He  squeaked. "Where did you even learn to talk like that?" Her hand snaked  out again and pointed to where I was standing. My best friend glared at  me. "You're a bad influence."

I  just gaped. "I didn't tell her to say that!" I snapped indignantly.  "She's got an even worse mouth than I do sometimes when we're alone."  Sulking a bit, I huffed. "Go get ready or whatever, we'll be out in a  bit to get going. You check with the others? Do they want to go?"

He  shook his head. "Mel and Abel already left to explore, Jessie is  cuddling with the animals, Natalie is in her room and Cark and Cass are  in for now. I went to check in and I think Cass decided to follow in  your footsteps and take a nap. Cark was hanging out reading some book  Zeke gave him. Seemed pretty into it. Basically, it'll just be the four  of us."

I  hadn't seen a spot to put the animals, but this place was an Ascendant  inn, so they probably had a basement for it or something. Shutting the  door in Benny's face, I walked over to grab some clothes. There was an  attached showed behind a hanging tapestry on the wall that I'd only just  noticed. I poked Callie as I went by. "You want to join me?" There was  some muffled muttering and I winced. "Not only is that not anatomically  possible, even if it was I wouldn't do it. How about you wake up a bit  while I shower and we can talk later." Her response was a muffled grunt  that may or may not have been a four letter word.

By  the time I came out, Callie was awake, albeit wearing the blanket like a  hood. She'd managed to scrounge up a cup of coffee from somewhere and  was sipping it, staring blankly into the distance. I snickered because  I'd seen this before. When Callie was really tired, especially after  partial naps, her brain kind of overloaded itself after waking up. She  would stare into space while her thoughts ran for a few minutes, letting  her mind catch up.

Despite  that, when I walked in, wearing my armor, her eyes snapped up to me.  "Shower." She croaked. And I just laughed and gestured that it was all  hers. She downed the coffee like a shot, shook her head back and forth  like she was trying to shake start it, and the stumbled into the  bathroom, grabbing her clothes on the way. After she left I grabbed my  mask off the dressed and popped it on my face, then I started stretching  a bit to loosen myself up after that absurdly comfortable nap.

The  hot water from the shower had relaxed me a ton too, and the combination  meant I needed to warm my muscles up a bit to really feel like I was  awake. As I was stretching, the tapestry pushed aside and steam billowed  out of the bathroom. "Oh gods." Groaned Callie as she emerged. "I'm  going to punch Benny in the throat someday when he isn't looking."

I  just laughed. "Don't be so grumpy. The nap would have messed up your  sleeping schedule anyway. Besides, I'll make you breakfast to make it up  to you. In return make sure he IS looking when you punch him in the  throat." She giggled at that as she dried her hair with a towel, not  worried about normal water damaging her armor or anything. "Anyway,  aside from the spatial rings, you planning to look for anything?"

She  gave a hum of consideration. "I think I might look into some weapons  myself. I raided the pavilion coffers before we left, so we'd have  enough for rings, but I should have some leftovers for a dagger or  something. My personal stash I'm saving for wishes, but I think it's  about time for me arm up. If you remember I can imbue my darkness into  items and control them like shadows. I did it with my bike, though it  took years of imbuing and special materials."

"Ah."  I said, understanding her point. "You've improved. Your new rank and  all the stats will make it easier. Plus I bet having a smaller target  would help too. Will you need to find a dagger with special materials  for that? Or can you just brute force it with anything darkness  related." I wasn't sure even a market this big would have her weapons if  they were too rare.

She  grinned at me. "Pretty much. I just...gods Shane, I never thought I'd  be this strong at this age. It would have taken me YEARS in Valen to get  to F-rank, if I ever did. I might have been able to do it in Rajak if  I'd left with my dad originally, but I'd have basically been selling my  soul. Now not only am I an F-ranker with a TERRIFYING new ability, I  have a whole team of friends and I'm STILL growing. By this time next  year I might be at E-rank at this rate!"

I  wanted to tell her not to jump the gun but...she wasn't wrong. I didn't  think it would be quite that fast. but still I could see her point.  "So...you're happy then?" She gave me a flat look and I held up my  hands. "Ok, forget I asked. I know we just talked about this. I just  worry. I don't want you to regret coming with me."

She rolled her eyes. "You're such an idiot about some stuff. You're lucky you're so cute. Not much in that giant head of yours."

It  was my turn to flip her off, to which she just giggled, then finished  brushing her hair and dragged me out of the room. We met up with Benny  and Celine in the downstairs entryway, and then the four of us set out  to explore the city. As a cheat, I reached into my pocket and pulled out  the map that led us here, but it didn't actually help at all. Lots of  streets and buildings but nothing was labeled.

"Nice  try." Said Zeke's voice from behind me. I jumped out of my skin,  whirling to find m uncle leaning against the wall behind us. He gave a  lazy wave.

"What are you doing out  here Zeke?" I asked incredulously. "You're usually pretty hands off. Do  you have something you wanted to pick up?"

He  sighed. "This place has way too many C and B-rankers. I can cross a  planet in a blink, but that only matters if my abilities are leagues  above everyone else. If two equally strong B-rankers are attacking  someone, the closest wins. Don't want to risk you pissing off someone  who might be a genuine threat. After that big show I put on I figure I  should stick close."

That  hadn't occurred to me, but it seemed like a sensible precaution. "The  mask won't work on high rankers. Right." I paused for a second.  "Wait...is this mask made from a person? I know your other ones are..."

He  snickered. "No. I have a limit to how many greater masks I can make. I  can add little buffs and stuff to them with my Voltomancy easily enough,  but soul binding a mask is complicated and time consuming, and I can't  sustain too many of them. Thirteen at a time, give or take. I can make  as many lesser masks as I want from lower ranked Ascendants, but I  usually don't bother."

"That's  a super creepy power." Said Benny matter of factly. "Just in case you  didn't know. At least they're masks made of porcelain and not  like...actual faces."

Zeke  nodded solemnly. "Even I have limits. Anyway, you're all looking for  the marketplace. What specifically were you hoping to find? I know  spatial rings, but I also know Shane wanted a weapon. What kind of  weapon did you settle on? I can point you in the right direction. Since  I'm with you and don't feel like wandering around for hours it's only  really helping myself."

I  nodded. "I've been waffling, but I decided on a specific type of staff  that has the properties I like. It's called a Bang. Some crazy Ascendant  with a monkey trait used to use one a long time ago. It's a short staff  made of wood with long iron caps on both ends. Small, heavy, and with  good spin, plus it's compact and easy to carry on my back. There are  some martial arts that use that kind of weapon, so I can pick up some  new Skills with it and keep a similar style of combat."

He  nodded thoughtfully. "I know the guy you mean. Way before my time  obviously, but I think the original Wishmaster knew him. Gods don't age  at all as far as I know, and he's been around a LONG time. Not that I  can swear to it, I've only met the old man a few times. He likes to  spoil the grandkids but attendants aren't usually allowed near him. Me  and Eli were close so he got an exception made."

I stared at him in shock. "You...met the Wishmaster. The original? What was he like? I always figured he'd be really scary."

"He  wasn't." He said simply. "But because of that...he was. Being a god and  being able to hide your presence so thoroughly you seem like a normal  old man? He looks to be in his fifties probably, and the one time I met  him. I couldn't tell. Not based on the way he moved, or talked, or even  his senses. He just felt...regular. It was extremely jarring, because I  knew he could atomize me with a strong thought."

He  trailed off, seeming distracted, so I focused back on the task at hand.  "We can talk about that later. For now, let's see if we can find my  weapon. I assume you have a place in mind?" The grin he gave me in  response made me a bit worried, honestly. I got the feeling this was  going to be a wild kind of place.